IT IS MORE THAN THREE YEARS SINCE Fifa set a lower age limit of 20 on international football transfers, in response to controversy over a trade that has systematically stripped Africa of its football talent. But world football’s governing body has been largely powerless to keep track of under-age players. Its ruling has been widely ignored and, for the football traders, it remains business as usual.

The latest arrival, Aboubacar Traoré, was due to fly in this morning to Paris from Abidjan in Ivory Coast. All being well, he would have been met from customs and passport control, by a representative of Jean-Marc Guillou. From Paris, Traoré will be taken to Beveren, in the Belgian league, to join the burgeoning Ivorian contingent at the club where Guillou is director.

By the end of 2003, Beveren were regularly fielding ten Ivorians in their starting line-up. Traoré will be the seventh young Ivorian to arrive since June, so he should feel very much at home. But if feeding the youngsters to Beveren one at a time has helped to keep the issue out of the public eye, unanswered questions remain about the conduct of the trade.

Like many of his new team-mates, Traoré learnt his craft at the Jean-Marc Guillou Centre, a football academy at Dagbe, 35km outside Abidjan. Carlos Gustavo, the centre’s Brazilian technical director, says a new intake of 21 youngsters, aged 12 to 15, was recruited in November, joining the 26 already at the centre. Although the academy is not recognised by the Ivorian football federation, its students play practice matches regularly with Toumoundi, the local second division side. According to Gustavo, Guillou has set up a similar academy in Madagascar and is at an advanced stage of negotiations to set up a third in Thailand.

It is hardly surprising that young players such as Traoré jump at the chance to leave a country teetering on the brink of civil war, to try their luck in Europe. But there is growing disquiet in Africa about the impact of the Guillou academy, and its burgeoning imitators, on the African game.

Within the continent, African championship matches that once attracted capacity crowds now play to half-empty stadiums. Although a few individuals are making big money from the trade in African players, the continent’s clubs and football federations seldom get a look-in. Indeed, ASEC Mimosas, a leading Ivorian club side, say they are owed £600,000 by Arsenal for Kolo Touré.

Nor do African national sides necessarily benefit. Arriving so young, and without professional papers, has encouraged many of the influx to take on European nationalities. Ivory Coast most recently lost Salomon Kalou, 19, younger brother of Bonaventure Kalou, who has been in sensational form for Auxerre, and who will play for Holland.

There is a growing consensus in African football circles that the continent’s football academies need to be brought under closer supervision and control. Burkina Faso has set an example by insisting that football schools cannot operate unless they are recognised by the national FA. Others are also looking at licensing schemes. But until the Confederation of African Football sets a framework for the continent as a whole, Africa’s “new slave trade” seems set to continue.

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